InDesign Basics - First Session

Personal Summary

Before this particular scheduled workshop I had already partook in the InDesign workshop available on workshop week, so many of what was taught within this session I had learnt previous. Though that was so there were still areas I didn’t know how to do, such as how to set paragraph spacing up and use the clipping path to set text around a clearly defined image. Therefore I will mainly cover those areas that were new to me, as a fair amount was already covered under my post from the workshop week. 

Hints and Tips

In-design is essentially a make-up package - a program that enables you to document all the information required for printing within one file.

Digital publishing is when you are producing something for a tablet, iPad and the like, as opposed to print based publishing.

If you ever need to place an image sourced from the Internet into your InDesign document always save it into a folder and then “Place” this into the page. This is because if you just drag it from the web to the file you may end up losing your source and spending extra time re-sourcing the imagery for the document. Keep in mind that when sourcing imagery from the web however you need to be certain the license allows you to use it for the purpose of which you need.

It is good practise to always keep the body text in a newspaper for example, set to one positioning throughout the whole document as this creates a unified feel to the newspaper. However in some cases this may be broken, particularly in those where designers aim to “break” the rules and within magazines you may find different articles alter the positioning of such. Though where this is the case it is usually clearly shown that the text belongs to a different article, usually by starting the article upon a different page.

Master Pages - It is always important to remember that if you want to create a set of guidelines upon your document which will appear throughout then you need to do so while on the “Master” page. The master page dictates to all other pages where text, images and guides should be place. Though if you need to move away from this at any point you can always right-click on the selected page (make sure you are on one of the individual pages at this point) and select “Override All Master Page Items”. This allows you to alter the individual page’s layout to your heart’s content. Furthermore if you require more then one saved layout to be applied to a multitude of pages simply create a new master page and apply to those as appropriate.

Technical Exercise

To start off this tutorial you will need an A4 page set at portrait.As we are creating this document for print we need to ensure this is what the “Intent” is set at. For the first few exercises we had facing pages set to on. This was because at first we were just required to practise using the different tools within InDesign. This was to ensure we had time to practise using the tools before demonstrating our newly learnt skills within a layout. Therefore I will display the new document page later in this post.

 

 

Paragraph Spacing Settings

One area of the session I found of particular use was that of setting up automatic paragraph spacing (as seen above). This can save time that would otherwise be spent pressing the enter key to break up the text. Firstly you need to select the paragraph formatting tools before then selecting all the text and setting the options up. Another feature I found of interest was that of applying text to a clipping path, this could be particularly useful when creating typographic imagery. Though when creating such imagery how useful this proves to be may depend on the simplicity of the images outline.

Clipping Path

A useful feature which can save time when numbering pages is that of the “Current Page Number” character. To insert this into a text box simply go to Type > Insert Special Character > Markers and then select Current Page Number. There is a shortcut to this marker though it isn’t the easiest of shortcuts and this is shift, N, Cmd and Alt all pressed down at once.

Layout

One point that is important to remember when creating items for print, is that when you want an image to cover the edges of a page it is good practise to set a bleed margin. This margin lets you know how far off the designated area the image is covering and it comes in useful when the article for example, may need cropping down from a larger paper sizing. 

Now we have reached the layout stage of the workshop we are setting the new document file to not have facing pages, as we want just the one page. If you were creating a two-page spread for example you can select this option and it will work out the pages for you.

This next step I found of interest and is often seen in magazine articles or educational books. To set the first letter of an article as being larger then the rest to distinguish it as the start, we need to turn it into a drop capital. To do this click anywhere within that paragraph and under the drop caps settings on the toolbar increase the sizing. You can increase its sizing manually in both width and length to your desired sizing. 

We were now talked through how to wrap text around an image, this became of interest when we were shown how to not just wrap it around the image’s box but its actual shape through using the clipping path. To do this you simply alter the “Threshold” and “Tolerance” slides as to achieve a clean crisp outline of your image’s subject. This tool works with a few options, the first being “Detect Edges” which involves InDesign working out the areas to remove and to what extent as dictated by the sliders. 

Clipping Path

Photoshop Path 

However this option only really works well if the subject has a simple background that is of a different colour to that of the foreground. If this isn’t the case then the best cause of action is using the more manual fine tuned settings available within Photoshop to create a clipping mask before importing the image into InDesign. How InDesign uses this is by allowing you to select “Photoshop Path” as the clipping path to use, so you save the file as a PSD and then import it straight into InDesign before following the steps(see images below). The final step in learning how we can use images with type was learning how to insert a photo within the body of a typeface. This has potential in regards to contemporary, alternative and experimental designs.

Export

Finally we looked at the saving options, some of which has been previously covered in my blog. When you come to package your magazine design it may display a warning symbol and explain that some text is overset on the summary page. In this case you need to select the pages it says are overset and just check this over, as it may be a case that there is an extra spacebar character. However it could also mean that there is a paragraph not showing, in which case you would need to enlarge the text box as to ensure all type is displayed. Saving the magazine with a package turns it into a mini kit, so to speak, as it ensures whichever computer prints the document has all the recourses it may need, fonts, images etc.

Final Design

To the right was my final example design from the techniques we learnt within the session. All students produced similar layouts as we were asked to set it out in a certain way as to ensure all technicalities could be taught effectively. Though there were a few differences in regards to font size, typeface and colour scheme used within the layout.

I am quite pleased with the result and look forward to using these techniques in the immediate future.

Please note that all images and copy text used within the design belong to their respective owners as these were used as example material.